C. Dale Brittain_Wizard of Yurt 01

by A Bad Spell in Yurt

  But in the morning, after chapel service, I went to talk to Joachim. He looked surprised to see me. We had barely spoken two words since he had nearly accused me of seducing the duchess. But that all seemed distant and trivial now.

  He was sitting in his room, drinking tea and eating a cinnamon cruller. Since the kitchen maid had only brought me a cake donut this morning, I was wildly envious, but I forced myself to overlook it. I had something more important on my mind.

  "You and I both know," I said, "that someone has put an evil spell on Yurt. It doesn't seem possible that such a charming castle should be touched by evil, but it is. I don't know who has cast the spell, but you and I have to do something about it. I don't think it was you, and I hope you don't think it was me."

  "I try not to accuse anyone of evil, even in my thoughts."

  "Tell me: How soon after you came to Yurt did you begin to feel the presence of an evil mind?"

  He put down his teacup carefully. "I have never felt an evil presence here."

  I didn't say anything for a moment but met his grave and slightly puzzled eyes in silence. Maybe only someone trained in wizardry would be susceptible to that oblique sense of evil magic. Or maybe, surrounded as he was by the aura of the saints, nothing wicked could approach him.

  "But you too were worried last night when we arrived and found everyone asleep."

  "Of course I was. There have been odd magical forces in Yurt as long as I have been here. At first I thought it must have something to do with your predecessor, since I knew he and my own predecessor had not gotten along well. But when he left and you came the same disruptive magic forces were still there." He startled me by taking my arm in a sharp grip. "I decided you were not behind them—that was why I was willing to tell the bishop I would take the responsibility for your soul."

  I eased my arm out of his fingers and did my best to smile. "It's ironic, isn't it. I feel something wrong in Yurt and assume it's part of the conflict between angels and demons. You feel the same thing and assume it's something to do with magic. But it's not just someone casting silly spells. There's an evil mind behind it."

  "I try not to accuse anyone of evil," he said again.

  I thought about this for a moment. "All right. I too don't want to think of anyone being absolutely evil. But I do think someone, deliberately or not, has involved the powers of darkness in his or her magic. Therefore, we—"

  Joachim interrupted me, his intense black eyes blazing. "You speak much too lightly of 'someone being absolutely evil.' Don't you realize that, if you believe that, you are denying the power of redemption?"

  "Well, I didn't really mean it in theological terms, so much as—"

  But he was not listening to me. "All of us are God's creation. Therefore none of us can ever destroy the good within us, or not destroy it totally. We priests do our best to keep that spirit of good a living flame, but even those who are wicked and depraved in this life may still be redeemed in the next."

  "But how about someone who gives his soul to the devil?"

  As soon as I asked I wish I had not, because I didn't want to hear the answer.

  Joachim's shoulders slumped slightly and he dropped his eyes. "Then that person is beyond the prayers of either mortals or the saints. He will still be redeemed when the devil himself is redeemed, but that will not be before the end of infinite time."

  The bright sun on the ice and snow outside the chaplain's open window seemed dim for a moment, and the chill in my bones was not due to the air coming through that window.

  If someone in the castle had made a pact with the devil, giving up his or her soul after death for advantages in this life, then that person's only chance was to trick or negotiate the devil into breaking the pact. His or her best hope was to have the negotiations done by someone else, someone who really understood the supernatural. The saints do not negotiate, which meant that a wizard, that is me, and not the chaplain who had already proved himself by healing the king, might have to deal with this.

  All that any wizard in the City—or probably in the world—knew about dealing with the devil had been distilled into the Diplomatica Diabolica, which meant I was going to have to read it, even though every time I even looked at its spine I was struck with the same fear that had gripped me when I first bought it: that I might endanger my own soul by summoning a demon by mistake, when had I only intended to learn how to deal with one who was already there.

  It was almost with a sense of light and ease that I thought again about the specific problem of who in Yurt might be practicing black magic. "I need your help," I told Joachim. "Someone's immortal soul may be in danger. I think that last night a sleeping spell had been put on the castle, though I don't know why. But if we can determine who did it, then we may be able to find out where the odd magic forces you mention are coming from."

  "It cannot be your predecessor, because he's gone," said the chaplain thoughtfully, looking at his hands. "And I don't think it's you." He gave me one of his intense looks, then returned to his hands. "It must have been someone who was here in the castle while we were visiting the duchess." He clearly was not used to this way of reasoning, but I waited impatiently while he worked it through for himself.

  Then he surprised me by asking, "From what distance can a spell be cast?"

  I should have thought of this myself. "I really don't know," I said, "but I don't think it's very far. I at any rate have never been able to cast a spell further than I could see." I stopped, thinking of my glass telephones, but decided not to confuse the issue by mentioning them. "Do you think it could be someone who lives down in the village?"

  "Or even someone in our party."

  I had been about to ask Joachim for his spiritual help against the constable, as the most likely of the people who had stayed in the castle, but now I was back to suspecting everyone in Yurt, perhaps everyone in the entire kingdom.

  Then I remembered that the supernatural influence Zahlfast had first noted stopped at the moat. Someone in the castle itself must be casting the spells, as I had always assumed. This meant—

  Joachim interrupted my thoughts. "Is it possible to cast a long-lasting spell, one that will continue to have effect when one is far away?" Apparently they taught them to ask sharp questions at the seminary.

  "It depends on the spell," I said. "Some of the elementary spells, like illusions, will fade fairly shortly unless constantly renewed. But some of the complicated spells, like lamps or magic locks, should last indefinitely." I decided not to mention the broken locks on the cellar door.

  "So someone who isn't even here any more, such as your predecessor, could have put an evil spell on Yurt that is still having an effect."

  I shook my head. "It's possible, but not very likely, even if the person is a master in wizardry." It was going to be hard to explain that the long-lasting spells, although the most complicated, were when completed often the simplest and most static. A spell that could sicken the king and make the apparently ageless Lady Maria start to age seemed too involved to be maintained from any distance, in space or time.

  "Let's assume," I said, "that the magic is being practiced by someone here in the castle, someone here now. I need your help because it isn't just ordinary magic, which I could deal with myself. Someone is acting with evil intent, or the king would not have come so close to dying, and he or she may have involved the supernatural, for the Lady Maria told me she had seen time run backwards."

  "I didn't think magic could make time run backwards."

  "It can't. Only the truly supernatural can do that. That's why I'm so terrified." I hadn't meant to tell him I was terrified, but he did not seem to mark the comment.

  "Where had she seen this happen?" he asked.

  "She won't tell me."

  "Did you want me to try asking her?"

  I contemplated the chaplain trying to pry the Lady Maria's secrets out of her with what he would consider tact. "No," I said, "it might frighten her to know that two of us realized
she was involved in some sort of magic gone astray. It would be just as well for only me, the wizard, to ask her about it."

  "Are you suggesting that she is practicing magic with evil intent?"

  "No, but somebody must be doing so."

  "We'll have to think about this systematically," said Joachim. I noticed he was not meeting my eyes and wondered if he was starting to suspect me of evil intent. "Of those who stayed in the castle while we were gone, certainly the constable is the strongest individual. I have never thought of him as other than good."

  "Neither had I," I said, "but he stays so much in the background that I realize I don't know him very well."

  "But what possible motive could he have for putting the others to sleep?"

  I was about to explain my theory of the person involved in black magic needing to get back in the cellar when there was a sudden knock at the door. "Come in!" called Joachim.

  I must have jumped six inches when the constable himself opened it and addressed the chaplain. "Excuse me," he said, "but there's someone to see you."

  II

  Joachim stood up and followed the constable out at once. I sat for a moment, looking at the backs of his books on his shelf, then, feeling it was not polite to stay here while he was gone, wandered out into the hallway.

  I had just had an idea about the constable. He had the keys to every room in the castle, yet he had told me that only Dominic, who had duplicate keys for most rooms, had the key to the cellar. Did this mean that he really did have the cellar key, but had wanted to deny it, knowing all too well what was down there?

  The challenge of trying to figure out what was happening in Yurt would have been highly enjoyable if I had not kept being overwhelmed with terror. I was glad to think that Joachim and I were probably friends again, at least for the moment; he might have some good ideas. By the time he came back, I had a theory to account for the north tower.

  The old wizard, I reasoned, liked to consider himself a wizard of light and air, but at some point he had dabbled in black magic. The old chaplain had suspected something of this, and so had the constable. The wizard had repented and gotten out with his soul intact, but when he retired he left all the paraphernalia of black magic behind him, locked up in his tower. The constable, however, who had somehow learned how to break magic locks, had gone in, taken everything down to his own den of evil in the cellar, and swept out the tower room to leave no traces.

  This was quite an appealing theory, other than the gaps of where the constable might have learned how to break locks and what, exactly, the "paraphernalia of black magic" might be. Having tried to avoid such things, I actually had no idea, except perhaps some books of evil spells.

  Joachim came swiftly back up the hallway and went into his room without speaking to me. But since he left the door open, I went in too after a minute. He had his saddlebag on the bed and was tossing a few things into it.

  He looked up at me. "There's a sick boy in the village. They want me to pray for him."

  I did not answer, feeling that "How nice," the all-purpose comment, was highly inappropriate.

  "Fortunately, I don't think he's very sick, and the doctor is already with him." He threw his Bible in on top and strapped up the bag. "It's the brother of the little girl who was bitten by the viper."

  "Dear God," I startled myself by saying.

  "If I were the father, I wouldn't send for me," said Joachim with what would have been grim humor in anyone else. "But he did." He stood up, pulled on his jacket, and swung the saddlebag over his shoulder. I followed him as he strode down through the castle to the courtyard. The same man in brown that I had seen before was waiting on his horse. In a moment, the chaplain was mounted and the two rode away together.

  I went out onto the drawbridge, although I was cold without a coat. The morning sun glittered on the icy snow. I watched until the two riders disappeared into the edge of the forest and felt very glad that I was not a priest.

  I hurried back inside and went in search of the constable. I found him in the kitchen talking to the cook. "Is something wrong?" she said, seeing me over his shoulder. "I know Gwen says that you always like crullers, but I'd only made a few this morning. She should be back from her vacation this afternoon."

  "It's not about the crullers," I said, although another time it would have been. I didn't even mention how stale the donut I had gotten had tasted. "I wanted to talk to the constable."

  "All right," he said, turning to smile at me. "Well, we can order whatever we don't have," he said over his shoulder to the cook. "Just start making a list of what you'll need. We can talk more later." Turning back to me, he said, "Shall we go to my chambers?"

  I had never actually been in the constable's chambers, and I immediately agreed, although if I had expected to see the paraphernalia of evil I was sadly disappointed. His chambers, in fact, looked a lot like mine, without the rows of books on magic. Instead he had big leather-bound manuscript books that I guessed were the castle accounts and inventories. There were rows of plants inside on the windowsills, and the furniture was all painted blue and white.

  The constable's wife was mopping the stone floor, the outer door open, as we came up. "Oh, excuse me, sir," she said, putting the bucket outside. She ran to close the bedroom door, but not before I had caught a glimpse of a wide, turned-back bed, the white pillows and comforter fluffed out to air. "I'll just go over to the kitchen for a moment, if you want to talk in private," she said.

  I realized the chief difficulty with my theory of the constable having sold his soul to the devil was the constable's wife. It appeared on the face of it much more likely that he had given himself to her, heart and soul, many years ago, and had been happy enough with the arrangement that he wanted nothing else, or at least nothing else that a demon could promise.

  "It makes such a happy difference having the king well again," he said. "But part of that difference is that we on the staff are kept much busier! The king told me this morning that he wants to have a big party here for Christmas. The cook will have to start planning immediately, as it's only three weeks away, and we'll have to send in our order by the pigeons in a day or two if we need to order anything special from the City. He wants the duchess and both counts to come, which means we'll have to clean out all the spare rooms to have them ready. I can't remember when he last had so many people at Christmas!"

  This was the difficulty with all my theories about anyone in the castle. Everyone always seemed so good-hearted and happy—except for Dominic—that it was impossible to suspect them of practicing black magic. I would have concluded I was imagining the whole thing, except that both Zahlfast and the chaplain, in their own way, had sensed it too.

  "The king must be feeling very social," I said, "to be planning to have a large party here when he's barely gotten back from visiting the duchess." Privately I wondered what the queen thought of this plan. "But I wanted to ask you something." It was probably pointless to ask, but since I had interrupted him anyway I might as well. "Are you sure you don't have a key to the cellars?"

  He looked surprised, as well he might, and took the heavy bunch of keys from his belt. "I'm quite sure I don't," he said, flipping through them. "Dominic took the key some years ago, when we decided just to lock the cellars up rather than trying to use them any more. They always were very damp. I'm not sure we ever had a duplicate key, because before then the door had always stood open." I certainly saw no key on his ring that matched the rusty iron one I had borrowed from Dominic. "Why do you ask?"

  I had been afraid he would say that. "I'd been thinking it might be possible to dry the cellars out and use them for my own purposes," I improvised. "We wizards need rooms that won't be hurt if one of our experiments in fire and light goes a little astray. I understand the old wizard had the north tower, but that he didn't want the tower room used again, so I thought the cellars might be a possibility. I'd looked at them a little the other week, but I hated to bother Dominic for his key again, so I . . ."<
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  The constable smiled knowingly. "I understand. You and Prince Dominic don't always see eye to eye, and you're almost afraid of him now. Don't be insulted!" seeing me about to interrupt. "It's not your fault. He's a hard man for anyone to get along with, as well I know."

  I nodded, not wanting to say anything for fear I'd start laughing. It made a much better excuse for talking to the constable rather than Dominic about the cellar key than anything I could have invented. But this made me think again that I ought to suspect Dominic. Suspecting him of evil intent, however, seemed so easy that I was worried that my personal feelings might cloud my judgment.

  "But are you sure you really want to try the cellars anyway?" said the constable. "We'd hoped you'd find the chambers we gave you satisfactory" (The old nurse doubtless found them delightful! I commented to myself), "but if you need something more we should at least be able to find you a room that's drier than the cellar. Could you wait, however, until after Christmas?"

  The constable looked really troubled that he would be too busy to find me a good room for my experiments in light and fire during the next three weeks. Now I supposed I would have to find some such experiments to do. Remembering that I was keeping him from his work, I reassured him that January would be fine, and rose to my feet.

  "Wait a minute, sir, if you don't mine," the constable said, and I sat down again. "There's something I wanted to ask you." He frowned and looked away. "When the king told me the people he wanted to invite for Christmas, he mentioned the duchess and the two counts, as I'd already said . . . But he also said he wanted to invite the old wizard."

  "Yes?" I prompted when he fell silent.

  "I wanted to ask if that was all right," the constable said, still not looking at me. "He lives very near here, down in the forest, and the king thought he would love coming up to the castle for Christmas, rather than spending it alone, that is, if you don't mind."

  "Of course I won't mind."

  The constable looked up then, smiling. "I'm sorry to bother you, then, but one hears rumors of how young and old royal wizards are always at odds, and even though I'd hinted to you when you first came that you might visit him, I knew you hadn't, so though I'd hoped that in your case . . ."